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Steady and thorough led to Helmick arrest

There was considerable speculation, shortly after Alan Helmick was found shot to death at his home near Whitewater last June 10, about whether Helmick’s wife was involved.

An affidavit made public this week in support of Miriam Helmick’s arrest on suspicion of murder and attempted murder shows that investigators with the Mesa County Sheriff’s Department also suspected Miriam early on. But they didn’t rush to arrest.

Instead, they carefully built a case against Miriam Helmick over many months, interviewing a multitude of witnesses and combing through telephone and financial records.

Miriam Helmick was formally charged with first-degree murder last week, but the affidavit remained sealed until this Monday.

Helmick, of course, remains innocent until proven guilty. And an affidavit in support of an arrest warrant is a far cry from convincing a jury beyond all reasonable doubt that Miriam Helmick murdered her husband.

The case investigators built against Helmick, as detailed in the 49-page affidavit, is substantial. It involves Miriam Helmick’s alleged effort to hinder communications between Alan Helmick and his adult children, her alleged transfer of thousands of dollars of Alan’s money to her own accounts without his knowledge and the events surrounding her alleged attempt to set his car on fire in Delta a few weeks prior to his murder.

We applaud investigators at the Mesa County Sheriff’s Department, and other law enforcement entities involved, for working diligently over the months to put together a solid case and thereby allow the arrest of Helmick in Florida earlier this month.